by M. D. Cooper
“What’s happening?” she asked.
“Be silent.”
The drones on the cube bobbed in place like spiders waiting on a web. The launches stopped, breaking the rhythm Lyssa hadn’t realized she was used to. In the quiet, another sound encroached: explosions. The station was vibrating from massive concussions against its outer levels.
From the throat of one of the long manufacturing lines, the blunt nose of a fighter appeared. Skimming the assembly line, the craft shot across the open space of the core storage zone, completing a lap before targeting the drones.
Lyssa’s heart leapt. The fighter was a Weapon Born.
ABSTRACTION PROTOCOL
STELLAR DATE: 09.04.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Hilgram Station
REGION: Hildas Asteroids, OuterSol
The world had become a forest. Ty lay on his stomach in thick pine needles, trees towering above him.
His right arm twitched, then moved without his control. He got his right gloved hand under him, and then his left, pushing up to his knees.
Ty fought the remote action for a few seconds until he realized the struggle was futile. Clarise had taken control of his body.
A woman was standing next to him now, tall and outlined in gold flame. She had round, expressive eyes in a face that over-acted everything she said, shifting between smiles and pouts within the same statement.
His rifle was lying in the pine needles next to his boots. Ty knelt and picked it up, turning the weapon in his hands to perform a functions check as he straightened. He had a satchel of grenades hanging from his side that he hefted, counting ten. Two pulse pistols hung at his waist line, both fully charged. The armor reported sixty percent efficiency.
Her voice carried an air of command that hadn’t been present before. When she had chastised him for Chandrey’s death, there had been a disappointed blame in her voice, a last attempt to motivate him. Now she had taken authority.
Ty turned his head inside his helmet, trying to see if Manny or Briggs were visible. All he could see were the tall trees that now formed a corridor with a right turn ten meters ahead. Some of the trees were scarred and swaying from invisible forces at the corner.
Her voice sent shivers of pleasure through his body, soothing him, bringing feelings of safety. The only sound in the forest around him was sighing wind, although evidence of the real firefight continued to show in battered trees and the scorched forest floor. Smoke rose in tufts from the pine needles ahead of him.
Ty raised his rifle in a tactical stance and walked forward in careful steps. He couldn’t fight the aiming reticle that appeared in his faceshield just as a hulking beast came into view at the end of the forest lane. The monster ran on its hind legs, blunt face leaking snot and slaver as it sprinted at him, claws outstretched.
The rifle worked effortlessly. Ty shot the first beast in its center of mass, slowing it, followed by a second shot in the face. Three more beasts appeared, spreading out and moving along the tree trunks. Clarise moved Ty in a zagging motion, avoiding the burning rocks the monsters lobbed at him.
More monsters came. There was no cover among the tree trunks. All Ty could do was move and fire.
He didn’t realize when Clarise returned control of his body. He had entered a flow state with the rifle as he fired and the monsters fell. They were scattered all over the corridor now as he reached the corner and edged around a tree trunk to find a portal into another realm.
He faced a rectangle of white light. As he eased forward, rolling hills dotted by cottages came into view. Each cottage had a closed wooden door and a square window with a muzzle pointing at him. He had reached the beasts’ village.
Ty slung his rifle, reached inside his satchel, and hefted a grenade, setting it on max concussive power. Drawing a pistol with his free hand, he fired on the closest cottage before arcing a grenade into its window where the barking muzzle tried to stop him.
The throw was perfect. The beast inside stopped firing as they scrambled to get away from the grenade, and then the cottage exploded, roof collapsing.
Focusing on the next target, Ty worried about Manny and Briggs. Should he ask Clarise for an update? It didn’t matter. He wouldn’t be able to do anything else until the village was cleared.
There were lumbering dragons appearing between the houses now, and spitting fire at him. He dove behind a raised log and threw more grenades before unslinging his rifle. He didn’t want to get pinned down, but the pistol wasn’t doing much against the dragons.
Monsters in the village shouted and screamed. Or was that someone behind him?
Ty shot running beasts as they escaped burning cottages, walking his line of fire back as far as he could. The dragons were moving slow enough that he could ignore them for now. They also couldn’t seem to penetrate his cover.
Using their lack of indirect fire, he dashed from log to log until he reached the first collapsed cottage. Once there, he spotted a group of beasts squatting next to a tree, obviously controlling the dragons remotely. He lobbed a grenade at their position.
With the coursers gone, who from Command could even trigger this new protocol in her?
As the monsters scattered, Ty had a second to breathe. His thoughts went immediately to Manny and Briggs, and he looked back at the rectangular portal now nearly thirty meters behind him.
Clarise said in a scolding voice.
The faint screaming continued to haunt Ty’s hearing. It wasn’t monstrous; it was human.
Ty tried the tacnet, but the option seemed to have been removed from his Link. When had that happened?
He stood and jogged to the wreckage of a cottage behind him.
Ty froze, losing control of his legs. He turned and walked woodenly the other direction, raising his rifle to his shoulder.
He fought again but could only clench his teeth. Clarise controlled his body, sighting in on clusters of monsters, and neutralizing them with accurate fire.
Clarise carried him forward like a drone, his body responding to the demands of the battlefield. Ty could only watch as a raging passenger.
As he struggled, a new voice emerged from the background static of Briggs’ crying. A voice that sounded familiar, though he didn’t know why.
Then she said a name that cut through his rage like ice.
THE LAST GUNSLINGER
STELLAR DATE: 09.04.3011 (Adjusted Years)
LOCATION: Hilgram Station
REGION: Hildas Asteroids, OuterSol
The Andersonians were dying. They fought bravely, but the Marsian soldier moving through their positions was like an incarnation of death.
Cara had been listening to their tacnet for what felt like an hour. She knew it had only been minutes. Still, the only sounds were low moaning and the screaming and crying of someone who had lost a leg and kept shouting about it.
After several minutes of no personal information, Cara entered the net and said Tim’s name. There was no answer.
“Do we have any way of telling who’s on their tacnet?” she asked Rondo.
“I’m sharing everything I’ve got with you. They’re broadcasting individual security tokens. The problem is nobody’s talking.”
The defenders had been forced to withdraw to the middle of the park as the Andersonian commander brought the last of their drones on line to flank the Marsian. Craters smoked where the forward gun positions had been, and now the Marsian was using those locations as cover against the remaining defensive positions.
Harvey was in consultation with the rest of the station leadership on whether they should pull out completely and release another radiation emitter. That would mean sacrificing their main residential block, dangerously close to where everyone was currently hiding. All for one soldier they couldn’t seem to stop.
Cara watched the Marsian approach, his dull armor pocked and battered. His gait said he was male, although he moved with a stiffness that suggested he was wounded. He kept turning to look back at the opening behind him, pausing, then pushing forward again. The Andersonians used these pauses to reposition along their remaining defensive line.
“Can you get into his suit?” Cara asked Rondo. “He’s acting like he’s already got a malfunction somewhere. If we can freeze the suit, he’s done.”
Rondo stared into the distance, lost in his Link. At first, Cara thought he hadn’t heard her. Then he gave a shallow nod.
“I’ve got its spectrum frequency,” he said.
Cara watched Rondo for several tense minutes, waiting for some update.
Whoever was crying redoubled their pained grunts. Then a strained voice said,
the young man sobbed.
The soldier in the park pulled his arm back and threw a grenade into the middle of the nearest Andersonian emplacement. When the soldiers scattered, he expertly picked them off with this rifle. Cara shook her head. He was getting close to her position, and soon, she’d be doing the same thing.
“Shit,” Rondo said, frustrated. “I can’t get the suit. It’s got a security scheme I’ve never seen before. I’d say it was being controlled remotely, but there’s no incoming feed that I can find. That guy’s Link is going crazy. The RF emanating off him should cook him from the inside out. He’s got some kind of upgraded Clarise NSAI that I’ve never seen before. I think she knew I was trying to get at the suit.”
Cara glanced at him, surprised to find Rondo looking pale. Had the encounter with Clarise disturbed him that much, even from the outside?
“She can’t get to you, can she?”
He shook his head. “It’s just…the memories are stronger than I thought they were. I did get something, though. I accessed his internal maintenance system and pulled a sensor overlay of his face.”
“You can send me a picture of him?”
Rondo nodded and sent the data.
Cara closed her eyes as the message hit her Link. The face appearing in her mind was distorted by the sensor’s low resolution.
Cara caught her breath.
It was her dad.
No.
She paused, forcing herself to look closer. He was thinner, younger, with the same straight nose and piercing eyes, the same worry in his expression. He was under extreme stress, battling some inner force that could be the NSAI that terrified Rondo.
He was much older than her mental image, but there was no denying the soldier was Tim.
“It’s him,” she told Rondo. “Give me the EMP.”
“You’re sure? I’ve only got one of these.”
“I know. And I’m certain. How close do I need to get the thing?”
“Five meters. Of course, it’s better if you can land it between his legs. His Link has been upgraded somewhere. I’m hoping they haven’t added some kind of shielding that I don’t know about.”
Rondo pulled the orb-shaped grenade from inside his jacket and turned it in his hand.
“I guess we’ll find out,” Cara said.
She took the grenade, hefting it. The orb’s surface was covered in a rubbery material that made it easier to grip. Still, she worried she was going to drop it and lose their one chance at rescuing Tim and saving the people of Hilgram Station.
“Harvey,” she called, getting the administrator’s attention. “I’m going after that Marsian. Tell your people to cover me.”
Harvey’s mouth fell open. When he saw that Cara wasn’t going to wait for him, he shouted for his commanders. Cara didn’t wait to see what they were doing. She surveyed the battlefield in front of her, locating Tim in the wreckage of a gun position about forty meters away. He had paused again, fighting his inner demon.
Cara gripped the grenade and slid around the side of their defensive position, headed for a tree five meters away.
Tim must have spotted her, because the ground in front of her sprayed soil from his rifle fire. Cara quickly shifted directions, diving behind a bench.
Damn you, Tim. You’re still going to act like a bratty little brother, aren’t you?
Cara dashed to a second row of trees as Andersonian soldiers moved forward on command to engage Tim. Still moving stiffly, Tim was forced to take his attention from Cara and draw down on the new threat.
Counting the soldiers moving forward, Cara realized that Harvey and his commanders were sending everything they had. This would work, or they would cede Hilgram to whatever was left of the Marsian team.
Tim didn’t forget about her, though. Every time he laid fire on the Andersonian line, his rifle pivoted to sight on Cara. She waited until he was firing on the other group to move, hitting the ground just as the sound of his rifle firing stopped.
After a minute of sustained fire, she suspected he had to be overheating the weapon. He would be pulling out his pistols soon, or using the last of his grenades.
As she suspected, a nearby thud indicated a grenade. He would target her when she got up to run, but Cara couldn’t risk riding out the grenade. She caught sight of a crater a few meters away and rose to dash for it. She was throwing herself into the depression when pain exploded in her right calf. She hit the ground and rolled into a fetal position, protecting the EMP grenade.
Cara didn’t look down at her leg. She clenched her teeth against the pain and crawled to the edge of the crater, looking for Tim.
She couldn’t find him at first. Then he came into view, walking around the edge of a fountain ten meters away. He was coming for her.
Cara ducked down as Tim raised his pistol.
She dared anoth
er look over the edge of the crater, holding the EMP grenade against her chest. She could try throwing it from here, but Tim still had too much room to react.
Shouting from the Andersonian line caught her attention. The soldiers were rising from their positions and running at Tim, forcing him to turn, pistols in both hands.
Cara scrambled out of the crater and ran at Tim. Her fingers fumbled over the grenade as she moved. She found the activation lever and squeezed with all her might.
Tim was facing away from her. She was only meters away.
He seemed to sense her, and turned, one pistol still firing on the Andersonians. The black muzzle of his pistol swam into focus. If he recognized her, his stance didn’t change.
Cara released the grenade and threw herself to the side. Her shoulder hit the ground as more pain flared in her ribs. He’d shot her again.
She rolled, telling herself to keep moving, waiting for the sound of the grenade.
There was a sizzling sound, followed by a percussive blast that set Cara’s ears ringing.
The sizzling died into quiet. Cara covered her head in her hands, waiting for more explosions. All she heard was the dull sound of rifles firing in the distance. Then those sounds died down.
Cara pushed herself up, looking back at Tim. He was standing where she had last seen him, arms outstretched, the pistols still pointed toward the Andersonian line and her, like the statue of an ancient gunslinger.
She waited.
Cara rose to her knees and then sat back heavily, calf screaming in pain. She didn’t care. They’d found him. They could save him.
THE LAST PORTAL
STELLAR DATE: Unknown
LOCATION: Unknown
REGION: Unknown
“They’ve been here for almost a day,” Camaris said, her gaze following the sleek fighter as it completed a circuit of her assembly chamber. “They came from High Terra in a TSS research vessel. The only thing that can withstand long-term exposure, I suppose. Another sign of their weakness. You and I could stay here as long as we like.”
